Monday, August 31, 2009

Dan Scoville and Jim Kennard, who famously located the wreck of HMS Ontario last year, have made yet another discovery in the deep waters of Lake Ontario. The wreck of the steamer Samuel F. Hodge has been found off Oak Orchard N.Y. Amazing sonar pictures and video of the site can be viewed on the Shipwreck World website by clicking here.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Save Ontario Shipwrecks has announced the availability of places on a NAS Level 1 course in Ottawa in late September. Anyone interested in this opportunity can obtain more details from Chris Holloway or download the registration form by clicking here. NAS Level 1 is an excellent introduction to both theoretical and practical aspects of avocational underwater archaeology.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Today, the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes celebrated the 50th anniversary of the launch of her signature vessel, the Coastguard icebreaker Alexander Henry, with a variety of events on site. Preserve Our Wrecks, closely associated with the history of the Museum, was delighted to provide a presence and to organize a diving demonstration. Friends from the Dolphin Scuba Club - and the Museum's own curator - Ben Holthof ventured into the basin of the dry dock and, using full-face masks with communication devices built in, were able to enjoy a dialogue with interested spectators topsides. Adam Rushton, who was good enough to provide the masks, also enabled visitors to watch the divers through a monitor linked to an underwater camera. The day was a great success - and members are advised to follow up on the celebrations of the vessel's birthday by getting along to the Brew Pub in downtown Kingston in the coming days. The Pub has commissioned a special 'Icebreaker Ale' for a limited period. Quite apart from the enjoyment of this fine beverage, patrons will be benefiting the Museum with a donation of 50¢ for every pint sold.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

This weekend, the Poker Run roared into Kingston. This annual event brings strong emotions to the fore. You can imagine that when Preserve Our Wrecks was invited to share a space in Confederation Park during the event with a wide variety of other organizations there was a debate about our acceptance. The argument was won by those who insisted that we could capitalize on the audience that the Poker Run attracts to get our own message across. Our experience today bears out the wisdom of this approach. I don't believe that we attracted any of the hard core speed demons to our stand, but we did answer a lot of enquiries about our work from the general public. The efforts we've been making to publicize our activities are clearly paying off. Many of those who spoke to our representatives, Dianne, Marg and Steve, had seen our news spots and read about our survey work. They were unanimously supportive of what we do.

Many thanks to those who gave up their Saturday to serve Preserve Our Wrecks. Their support is a fine example of what keeps us going. As I said to a couple of people today. The POW operating budget probably wouldn't buy enough gas to get one of the cigarette boats to the starting line, but we still have fun and do a lot of good work...